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25th, September 2017 “We have started with sensitization activities in preparation for the oil and gas exploration in this region,” State Minister for Energy, Mr. Peter Lokaris said during the launch in Nakapiripirit District. He warned the residents and their leaders to be mindful of speculators who will now want to dupe people in Karamoja to buy their land.

Representatives of faith-basedorganizations, civil society organizations, community-basedorganizations, local government, media andacademics from Uganda, Tanzania, andinternationalpartners from Nigeria, Chad and the United States of America met on August 23-24, 2017 in Entebbe, Uganda to shareinformation, experiences and lessons, and deliberate on the proposed East African Crude Oil Pipeline(EACOP).

Themeeting made the following Recommendations:

Community engagement in the construction of the pipeline

Protection of Citizen’s rights in the process of land acquisition

Resettlement Action Plans should be developed in a participatorymanner

Compliance with national standards for social and environmental impactmitigation

After the discovery of commercially viable oil reserves in 2006, companies including London-based Tullow, the French Total and the Chinese government-run CNOOC began drilling exploratory wells in the Lake Albert region. By 2009, the region’s reserves were estimated at 6.5 billion oil barrels. According to the World Bank, that would be enough to potentially remake Uganda, where the gross domestic product per capita was roughly $572 in 2013, into a middle-income country within 25 years.

Total group has appointed Adewale Fayemi, a Nigerian national, as the new general manager of Total E&P Uganda Limited.

Fayemi replaces Francois Rafin from France, who was recalled back to head office in Paris in January this year – less than six months after he took up the job. Total E&P Uganda is one of the oil companies in the country’s oil and gas sector alongside UK’s Tullow and China’s Cnooc.

It is unlikely that Uganda will produce oil by 2018, Bank of Uganda has indicated.

In the monetary policy report for April 2015, the central bank says "the global oil price outlook places severe question marks over the speed with which Uganda’s oil resources can now be developed, especially given that the country’s proven oil reserves are waxy, which increases the cost of moving them to the coast.”

KAMPALA, March 31 (Reuters) - French energy company Total is seeking international arbitration over a tax disagreement with Uganda which could further delay crude oil production in the east African country.

"Total E&P Uganda confirms that it has filed a request for arbitration before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes," Total's Ugandan unit told Reuters on Tuesday.